


Into The Clear Blue Yonder

by Sherb42



Series: Thunderbirds: Supercharged [1]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Badly organized father/son relationships, I've been working on this for so fuckin long, Original Universe, Other, Thunderbirds: Supercharged, Tripp and Roxxet are reffenced and everything, another fan reboot done for the hell of it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:40:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28357140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sherb42/pseuds/Sherb42
Summary: With an engineering fault trapping civilians on board an aeroplane attached to a launching space shuttle, a mysterious ship straying close to a cosmic fault line and sending out a distress signal only old computers can read, an underwater resort sunken with people slowly suffocating within, and an earthquake trapping people under a mountain landslide, it was safe to say that international rescue were having a bit of a busy day.Oh, and Alan Tracy has just been expelled from school. Oh boy.
Series: Thunderbirds: Supercharged [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2201901
Comments: 11
Kudos: 11





	1. Introduction to Our Heroes

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to @/kleeboy for beta'ing all of this, you're a legend.

First, let me first supply you with some worldbuilding.

Man first walked on the moon in 1970. The USSR had won the race to the moon, and, in keeping with tradition, the USA extended that race to the first to settle on it. In the mid-1980s the world saw the Third World War, and then almost directly after was the complete rejection of all atomic technology that lasted like a tiny second dark age.

What was once a world that promised a future digitally charged age of unification and progress, now merely saw it all as a fad to be ignored as almost every developed nation fell into a crisis. What had worked in the past still did, and so that’s what they did. Many, in the absence of anything better to look forward to, turned their sights and attention to the moon, making their first steps towards the future on its dusty shores; the cosmic equivalent of renovating a cheap rental as you work your career towards a nice big house in the country. Sure, it wasn’t much, but by golly, it was an impressive start given what everybody was dealt with.

Not long after that metaphorical paint was dry, The Global Conflict of 2040 brought it all crashing back, although this next big war barely counted as one, and more ‘The Cold War 2: But Now It’s Personal.’ Once that was (almost) all out of everybody’s system, people slowly began to remember where they had left off. And that whole deal with the Anderson fault becoming more and more of a cosmic threat as time goes on; but that’s exposition for another time. 

The last hundred years or so have been interesting, to say the least. If you want a better and slightly clearer comparison, humanity has only really been able to recreate the computing advances of the 1970s in the last couple of years. You might still see a digital watch here and there, but only as expensive gifts. 

Still, global economies have gotten better even without going digital, and so have the firepower behind them.

* * *

Our story begins during the first half of 2062 in a rather impressive aviation college on the west coast of what was formally the United States of America. Any reasonable person would rather be at home watching TV or down at the beach on a sunny Friday like this, but when you’d been accepted into one of the most prestigious aviation colleges on the west coast - be it by a passion for your future career or by your daddy’s dollar - you weren’t going to miss the biggest sporting event of the year. Faculty and students alike had worked for months in build-up to it. A lifetime could be made by impressing the right person, and all the right people were going to be there today. It was also a day for future students to come and get a feel of how the school was as it’s buzziest, with the rest of the sporting events being there more or less to just cheer the rest of the school on with good morale.

The school’s landing strip and surrounding sports fields had half a century ago been acres of landfill, but now had been covered over with a layer of green astroturf and tarmac. The large hangar at the end of the runway had its doors open, and from within ebbed the nervous buzz of the senior students as they scurried around their hoverjets. They were set to do a flyover at noon sharp, and it had everyone - from accelerated course kids to graduates who had re-enrolled just for the program - on edge. People were buzzing around, radios fuzzed and beepers beeped. It was the student’s job to keep the hoverjets in good running order, although the range of care put into the machines ranged from a prized restoration job to a car used for running from the cops in. 

Weaving through the undignified thrum of students were a pair of men going from ship to ship, watching the preflight checks with a reserved yet sincere interest.

The first man was an older one, and was the one receiving the most of the respectful ‘mornin’ sirs’ from passing students. He returned each with a nod of his own, always happy to see them buzzing around in something they were passionate about. Oaklen, although not in this story for all that long, was a long-standing principal who prided himself in his work and the role that he played in influencing his young student’s lives. He was dressed fairly sharply and was fresh off helping to announce one of the junior sports. 

Oaklen’s companion was a formal-feeling man with clean, slicked-back white hair, and was there to see the show flight and meet those who would be flying for it that day. He had on a baseball cap with the school’s logo on, and a new-looking lanyard with his guest ID in it. Both men had the shared aura that they knew their way around any airstrip as if it was an old home.

“Good morning, Principal!” a student chirped, poking their head around the cockpit of the hoverjet as the two men passed by. People just like her were eager to show off, but also to prove that they actually had a good reason for being around and not just avoiding having to stand around any of the other sporting events.

“Good m-,” Oaklen coughed into the sleeve of his linen jacket. “Apologies, the announcement podium for Junior Athletics didn’t have any water. Good morning Miss McCallister, we won’t keep you, just passing through.”

“I’d offer you some of my water, but, uh…” the student looked over to her water bottle, which was covered in black smears of grease and almost certainly too hot to be refreshing.

Oaklen laughed. “Yes, I think I’ll pass, thank you. Now back to it, eh?”

McCallister vanished back into her hoverjet, the men continued walking. 

“I see you’ve got a good rapport with your students. Impressive at such a big school.” The second man was a good bit taller than Oaklen, and had on a well-loved leather flight jacket.

“Well, thank you. You can’t work in education as long as I have without learning a thing or two yourself, and I’ve certainly learned that the more the students like you, the more they respect you. It’s also why we have such high morale.”

“Some folks would probably say you’re too soft on them.”

“And some folks don’t know how to run a school like I do,” Oaklen gestured vaguely to the flurry of students. “Nobody could look at them and tell me they don’t know the importance of hard work. They’re all ready for their futures, and I couldn’t be more proud.”

Oaklen was right. This day could be, for many of them, the first day of the rest of their lives, and everyone was on their utmost best behaviour.

Well. Almost everyone.

The clear sky was bleeding sunlight and flooding the airstrip and all those minding on it. The pair arrived at another ship just like any other; one of the hoverjets that were being looked over. 

There was a pair of legs sticking out of the underside, the owner lying on a mechanic’s roller and more than enveloped in his work. A spectrum branded, well-loved, black commercial duffle bag was sitting on the tarmac by the landing gear in arms’ reach. The bag had been filled with large canisters of some sort of condensed foam, as well as empty crushed cans of energy drinks spluttered with the dried residue of something, likely whatever was in the canisters. The original content and warning labels of the canisters looked like they had been ripped off and replaced with hand typed new ones. It all looked like it would have been fairly heavy to lug from hoverjet to overjet.

Oaklen stopped, looked down at the person working, and then knocked a rhythm on the side of the hoverjet with his knuckle.

A knock with the same rhythm replied from inside, and then the mechanic rolled himself out on his creeper. The mechanic was rather young, naturally blond, and rather tanned around his cheeks with a hint of a cleft chin under the very beginnings of teenage stubble. He needed a haircut, his fringe being kept back with a woman’s headband and was dressed in protective clothing over a school sports uniform, engine oil all over his ungloved hands, and a spot of even more oil on his face of oil that looked like it had gotten there from him scratching it.

The young man looked like he had just been snapped out of a pretty impressive spell of paying attention to what he had been doing. He looked between the two men, both gauging what his next reaction would be and to try and get used to the sunlight. It was clear right away that he wasn’t in trouble, or doing anything that would lead to him being in it, but he still looked like he was up to something. perhaps that was just the general vibe that he produced.

“Hello, Master Alan,” Oaklen said with a friendly smile, leaning down so the two would be able to more easily converse.

‘Alan’ kept himself unsure of how exactly to respond to that, “….Hey, Principal Oaklen. I’m supposed to be here.”

Oaklen shook his head with a smile. “No worries there,” he replied. Oaklen was one of the types of people who would have - and currently had on - a digital watch. He looked over to his companion by his right, “This Alan Tracy, one of our star aviation students that I was talking to you about,“ he introduced with a smile. “He’s quite an up-and-coming student in the program, and is usually hanging around working on the ships just like this.”

“Guilty as charged.” Alan didn’t seem to care all that much about the principal’s praise. He’d heard it all before and looked like he really just wanted to get back to work.

The man next to Oaklen thought for a moment. He was slightly shorter, and his attention had been directed more at Alan’s bag than Alan himself, tucking the printed rainbow-themed logo on its side with his foot. “‘Tracy,’ huh? Any relation to ‘Jeff Tracy?’” He asked. He sounded as if he knew who ‘Jeff Tracy’ was.

“….The uh, astronaut guy?” Alan asked back, re-adjusting his headband. 

“Mhm-hm,” The man said with a nod.

“Oh, Yeah. He’s my dad,” Alan replied with a shrug. Not that he didn’t care about his old man, far from it, but it sounded like it hadn’t at all been the first time he had been asked that from a stranger like this. Who he was didn’t seem to matter outside of the blood relation to the types of people who generally asked that.

“All of the Tracy boys have attended here,” Oaklen said in half of a brag, “Their mother, too.”

The other man thought for a moment. “…Oh yes, I believe I’ve read about her, yes. Her crash, at least.”

Alan stopped the conversation from following on that topic with a handout. “I’m sorry – sir, am I meant to be setting a good example for the school here, or –“

“I won’t keep you if you’re already busy,” Oaklen said, already well adjusted to what Alan Tracy was like on a daily basis, and not at all taken by seeing such a young student working alone on a hoverjet like this. “I’m just showing Mr Gray here our student flight program.”

“Well, you’ve picked a good day for it,” Alan replied. There was a break in the conversation, and then he began to slowly roll back into his work. The other two were still watching.

“What _are_ you doing?” ‘Mr Gray’ asked as he tried his best to get a look inside of the compartment that Alan was working in as he adjusted his cap. He seemed rather taken with this young man already.

Alan pulled himself back out. “The ship needed an adjustment to the release valve for the-“ Alan tapped one of the air tank-like canisters by his bag with the side of his foot, “- foam-vapour-thing. Yaknow how they do their little show and them then leave all that colourful stuff in the sky?”

“Yes, I am fully aware.”

“Yeah, this one’s all bugged up. It’s not letting out a very consistent flow so it looks all choppy.” Alan spoke with a formal confidence, like a nice car mechanic explaining to you how the breaks worked if you asked or a young child explaining the basics of his special interest.

“And that’s your job, is it?” Gray asked.

Alan gave a casual ‘eh’ with a hand up. “Anybody who would give a shit about it are over debriefing or doing other checks.”

“ _Language_ ,” Oaklen scoured from a hand over his mouth.

“I’m speaking ‘English,’ sir,” Alan replied without skipping a beat.

This made Gray chuckle to himself. Oaklen wasn’t at all as pleased.

“Better than warming up for an event?” Gray half teased. 

“Yes sir,” Alan replied. That was an enthusiast as he had sounded during the entire interaction. Alan was already a very sporty kid on his own, but it was clear that he was using this last-minute repair time to avoid milling around the rest of his class. “Besides, all the stuff for my age group was earlier in the morning.”

Alan was also too young to fly the hoverjets for this event, but even if it had been offered to him he likely wouldn’t have taken it.

“Mh-hm, mh-hm,” Gray said with a nod and a smile. “Alright,” He said as he stood up, “It’s nice to see a student with a genuine passion for the craft.”

Alan brushed it off with a smile, he wasn’t blushing, but you might have expected him too. “I’m a Tracy, sir, I can’t help it.”

Oaklen put his hand on Gray’s shoulder and began to escort him away. “They’ll be doing briefings in a moment, we should see that over – I need to give a speech to them regardless.”

The men kept on chatting with each other as they left Alan’s earshot. Grey looked back one more time at him before replying to a comment made by the other. Alan paused in place until he too couldn’t see or hear the other two anymore. He rolled himself back under the hoverjet. “Yeah, genuine passion,” he repeated, soldering in a wire that shouldn’t be there and putting in another canister of his homebrewed replacement foam.

* * *

The Kemra 654 was an aircraft at the top of her class. Twin jetted and atomic-powered, it was the go-to choice for many commercial airlines to use. Goodwing Airlines flight J75D was a Kemra 654 Jet that was currently offering a piggyback to a small space shuttle staffed with American astronauts helping to trail this new form of slingshot population. Inside the jet were some media personnel including reporters, a few overseers and funders of the project, and regular passengers travelling a Houston to New Toronto flight. 

The whole experiment was years in the making, and the main goal of it all was to save on booster power. Although almost every ship nowadays is atomically powered, it still takes a lot of that atomic energy on leaving the Earth’s atmosphere and gravity. If today could prove that you could use a regular, no thrills attached aeroplane to get through those first stages of launch, it could open a whole new era of more affordable laymen space travel. 

Of course, the scientific progress was exciting, but progress alone didn’t get anything funded. One of the project’s main backers was also in the still newly emerging space tourism industry, so I’m sure that you can see all of the benefits of being able to have your guests depart at a regular airport alone.

One of the investors of the project was seated in first class, a summer’s hat, a scarf, and a summer’s coat. The woman was tall, blond, and dressed almost exclusively in pink. She had a formal and elegant aura to herself, but was still easy to approach. Only a smaller funder until there was recorded success, but she was close enough friends with the right people, including one of the men who helped redesign the shuttle’s propulsion system, so her ticket would have been guaranteed regardless.

The other man with her was seated directly opposite, and did not at all have the same level of collect as she did. He was the type of person who would call aeroplanes ‘fiery death machines’, and had already done just that twice today, despite the fact that he actually designed and built the machines for a living. He was a skittish, oddly pale man for somebody who wasn’t even remotely Caucasian and he kept himself in such a constant state of stress that he was already starting to go bald. He had big, dark-blue rimmed glasses on, and was checking over something in a scattered around notebook with two different coloured sparkly pens in hand, one purple and the other pink. The man was American, and was in a tweed coat.

The woman sitting opposed looked him up and down. “You seem uncharacteristically relaxed this morning,” she commented in a rather strong King’s English accent.

The man flinched and took a moment to bring himself back together enough to form a coherent reply. “Y-y-y-y-yes, Lady Penelope,” he replied. 

“Something on your mind?”

“I’m a- I’m a rather jittery flier,” The man replied with a sigh. 

“Yes, I know,” she replied, then taking a sip out of a rose-themed teacup. “I have flown with you many times before.”

“What If I’ve missed something? I know the engines of the 654 jets so well; what if I’m too close to the action to notice any problems?”

“You didn’t work on this ship, you worked on the ship on top of us. And even then only as an indirect overseer.”

The man made a sound that could be roughly transcribed as a ‘gnhnnnn’ as he put his whole fist in his mouth.

“Oh, tish.” She set her teacup down. “If you truly knew that anything would have gone wrong, you and I wouldn’t be flying at this very moment.”

The man sunk lower in his chair. “You’re right, Lady Penelope, you’re right.”

Lady Penelope took out a cigarette from a decorative case from her purse. She offered it to him with a quick and quiet exchange and lit it for him once it was in his mouth. “Oh, Brains, if you could spend the rest of your life in that dingy little workshop of yours, you would,” She was right and they both knew it.

‘Brains’ took a drag of the cigarette and blew out a perfect ring of smoke. “I-I-I-I _would_ prefer that, yes.”

“Well, I trust you and your work, and so does everybody else. You just need to trust _yourself_ more.”

A stewardess dressed in light blue came to their seats. “All okay here?” she asked.

Lady Penelope returned the smile, “We’re all fine here, thank you.” Brains nodded in agreement.

The stewardess’s watch beeped as she moved down along the jet. She checked the time, and then a screen on the wall, and went into the domestic section of the aeroplane.

Once there, she picked up a phone that gave her access to the ship’s intercom. “If I can have your attention, please,” she began, “if everybody could return to their seats, the uncoupling of the shuttle just above us will begin shortly.” Some of the media in the front few rows called out their questions, but she simply referred them for after the launch. A couple of these media personnel were actually broadcasting the event live. The domestic passengers sat in a larger area with two rows of seating on either side with a designated eating bar and the smoking area towards the back. It was roughly an hour into the trip, and most were still in their seats. 

Sitting down back in first class, Lady Penelope was sitting perfectly so that she had Brains in her direct line of sight. He was leaning over to try and get a look at the stewardess down the hallway of the jet, even if they could hear her fine over the loudspeakers.

The stewardess checked her watch again, it had been synced exactly to what the rest of the operation was running on just for this moment. “If you listen closely,” she began with a friendly, well-rehearsed smile and her hand up in the air, “you will hear a small pop of the coupling keeping the shuttle attached release, the shuttle start it’s boosters, and the shuttle set off at the same as we begin our descent back to Earth. The whole process is being controlled by a state-of-the-art electronic computer situated in the shuttle itself.” The basic idea was that the shuttle would keep ascending from this high point and then make it into space that way. Flight J75D was, in essence, just one big ramp. 

Brains put his finger up as he listened to the hum of the engines as instructed. It got put down as he anticipated it to change.

It didn’t.

Nothing at all changed. Not a pop or anything else like it to indicate that the shuttle above was going to move. A few more seconds past, and then the jet started its automatic descent back down to Earth. 

His face fell. It wasn’t his usual stress-scorned face, but one made of pure, unbilled panic. Brains began to fidget around in his seat.

Lady Penelope noticed the shift in tone. “….Hiram?” she asked, putting her hand on his knee.

There was an aggressive jolt, and half a second later the entire ship was thrown out of its rhythm. People screamed as they were forced down into the seats. The stewardess was thrown into somebody’s camera, her intercom radio hitting her smack in the face as she landed. The overhead lighting of the cabin dimmed down as backup lights kicked in, those in the media all jumped to attention to try and be the first person to document what was going on. Others just kept deathly quiet.

The stewardess rubbed her hit eye and looked right into their cameras and ring lights; it was clear that she wasn’t going to be able to give a good answer as to what had just happened. That only made things worse.


	2. A Further Introduction to Our Heroes

Brains didn’t move an inch. He had been holding onto his seat so tightly that there was nowhere that he could have even reasonably gone. His panicked ‘hngnnn’-ing only grew louder.

Lady Penelope looked out to the rest of first class. Those attending around her had done their best to return to their seats - or just down to the floor, to the bartender’s recommendation, - but it was clear that the people there were just as worried as those panicking in coach. “We’re going to be late for the benefactors’ party,” she cursed quietly to herself with a tisk, mentally rearranging her schedule around her imminent death by aeroplane crash.

She slunk back down into her chair and looked to her companion. 

“I hate being right,” Brains muttered.

The atmosphere of the rest of the ship wasn’t all that much better. The pilots kept themselves removed from the passengers, having turned all of their focus to fixing the problem at hand - in hindsight, perhaps not the best move - leaving the full force of the panicked public on the rest of the crew. Those with cameras were putting them to good use, some getting panicked last statements from fellow passengers and others broadcasting what they could see from out of the windows. It wasn’t a large media presence, but it was enough representatives from enough networks that it didn’t take very long for people on the ground to find out it had all gone wrong. A few stations had even been broadcasting the event live on daytime TV, so the shift between talk show to breaking news was nearly instantaneous. The media finding out about this disaster in-progress was the least of concerns for those trying to sort the situation out from ground control for both sets of pilots in either ship.

The main consensus from everybody involved was that the release system for the shuttle just... didn’t release. The boosters did their proper job on cue as both ships seemed to have no issue before or during test flights. It was almost as if the computer code for the couplings’ release program - or something with the same amount of administrative power - had been completely scrubbed as soon as they left the ground. There was nothing that the pilots of either ship could do now to try and get it to release manually, outside of getting out of the jet and kicking it open.

When it was looked into if the shuttle could kill its engines to slow the ships down, the first reply from the pilot whose job was to do just that was a quite “uhhhhh – fuck. Hang on,” before you could hear the sound of a console being ripped open.

The shuttle programming was told that it would be launching into space, and it was going to do everything in its power to do just that; with or without the jet airliner attached.

* * *

We find ourselves now back on the ground, quickly approaching midday. 

The junior half of the school had already done their swimming events of the day, and everybody in the pool grandstands were currently ready and waiting for the student flyover before the seniors began theirs. It wasn’t that big of a school in the grand scheme of things, so they could afford to speed through everything like that. The other grandstands overlooking the track events all over the school had also paused, and were watching the sky for any sign of movement. The usual event hussle had slowed down just for a moment, leaving everybody there to mingle among themselves instead.

Alan Tracy was by the pool.

He shuffled his black canvas duffle bag around to his back as he left the pool’s changing room, his work coverings had been bunched up in a plastic shopping bag and, with the minimal amount of effort he had put into cleaning them, his hands were still slightly sticky with engine oil. There were quite a lot of people around the pool, most of whom had taken this intermission to go get something to eat from the concession stand that had been built under the larger grandstand.

Actually, hang on. That’s a lot of people – way more than there should reasonably have been.

Alan pushed his way through the crowd of people who had all gathered inside of the stand. He generated the reaction of the kind of unpopular guy that he was as he moved forward to get a better view of whatever was so incredibly captivating for them. Somebody shot him a look, another muttered to a friend. It looked as if she was talking about something else, but it was hard to know for sure. Alan wasn’t a weird, ‘quirky’ unpopular, but unpopular because he actively put in the effort to be. 

A couple of hot chip orders were being made and called, sure, but almost everybody there had eagerly gathered around a television in the far corner of the waiting area. It was a smaller, television mounted to the wall, a videocard player plugged in and sitting on a shelf under it. Well-loved and well used to playing sporting matches, but right now the set was displaying the national news.

The program changed away from a soda advert to that of a standard Kemra 645 jet that appeared to have a second, smaller ship on top of it, both flying high in the sky. The smaller ship’s boosters had been activated, leaving a trail of smoke behind both ships as it burnt away the tail of the 645. The footage of the outside was distant and zoomed in, but it looked to be the clearest footage that the videographers could get of the event. There was also footage directly from the reporters inside of the 645, but it was being used rather sparingly. You don’t want to be the station to broadcast somebody’s last moments before a fiery death. A banner at the bottom of the screen scrolled to say that you can catch up on whatever had been playing before - some sort of talkshow - on a sister shopping channel.

Alan, out of nothing better than impulse, just groaned in annoyance. He knew _exactly_ how this was going to end. The few people who had heard him do this either made a comment or tried their best to ignore him. _What an asshole._

* * *

Flight J75D was more exciting for the people on the ground than those stuck inside. It had been just shy of two minutes since the shuttle initiated its launch sequence, The 645 was starting to buckle from the force of the takeoff. The sound of metal tensing and creaking came from above. There was a general aura of dread abound, but it was no longer the usual, quick to the punch dread of a plane about to land. It was felt now more like some sort of tar that everybody was slowly yet surely sinking into. 

There was the sound of radio connections, and then the soft bing of the intercom waking up. People gave it their attention.

A young man’s voice came from the speakers up above. It wasn’t that of the pilots, or any of the crew. His voice was focused and sensible, with a hint of a transatlantic accent. 

“Good afternoon, Goodwing Airlines flight Juliet 75-Delta. Please remain calm. You may experience turbulence in the next few minutes as we work to remedy the situation.We also request that you turn off any and all cameras you have on hand.”

Passengers murmured among themselves.

There was a new sound coming from the port side of the 645. It wasn’t an explosion like what was occurring above their heads. It sounded like the sonic boom of a ship.

It was a ship, perhaps, but nothing like most of what the passengers had ever seen before. It was built like a missile but moved with the grace and control of a dogfighter. The nose cone was a bright red, the bulk of its body was an eye catching sliver, and the rocket component was a bright, textured blue. The ship easily matched its speed to the plane, and ducked over and around with a spin, holding its pace on the starboard side instead. ‘Thunderbird 1’ was written down its side in big, bold letters. The ship also featured the ever recognizable logo of International Rescue; a hand reaching out in protection of Earth, it’s comet tail extending out with a sparkle of colour. 

Lady Penelope watched Thunderbird 1 arrive from her window. 

“My my, the boys are here already,” she noted with a calm smile. She looked over to Brains, who was also watching. “Was this your doing?”

“They m-m-m-m-must have been following the flight far enough behind that they wouldn’t be tracked,” He replied, looking back at her. “And g-g-g-g-g-good that they did.” You could already see how much of his stress had been lifted. He let go of the armrests and lifted himself just that bit more off his seat, now sitting in it instead of trying to become part of it. 

The two of them were currently the calmest people on the ship. Brains usually struggled to be the calmest person in the room even if he was the only one in it. 

Thunderbird 1 crept in closer, held steady by an expert pilot. On the underside of its belly of the ship were large, clear cargo doors. Once it was clear to do so, the ships’ cargo bay depressurized and the doors opened to reveal a man in uniform standing by, holding onto a support. The figure was tall and masculine, his uniform was in a dark navy blue, with a strip from his chest down one of his legs in a brighter blue, a signature colour seen on all of his personal equipment. He pulled open the door on the side of his ship with a helmeted grunt and scanned the scene before him. The man’s helmet was glazed over like bikers’ and he had a sleek looking jetpack on his back that was partly built into his uniform.

The man pressed a coms button that was on the side of his helmet, and then shot a magnetic grapple from his ship to the wing of the jet. With thick, purpose-built gloves, he rappelled down with the grapple’s chord and landed with a heavy clunk on the wing of the plane, his feet keeping solidly attached from a magnetic system built into his boots. He paused for a half a moment as he looked to the passengers in the plane and gathered his bearings, the sunlight bleeding in from behind him creating what was almost a golden halo. The man began his careful march to the body of the plane, and then up to address the stuck coupling manually. Thunderbird 1 kept it’s pace exactly with the jet.

A second, far larger ship then appeared next on the other side. The man on the roof waved it in before going back to work.

The second ship, branded with ‘Thunderbird 2’ down its side, was an eye-catching green, had short wings, and a connected fin at the back that helped to keep it stable in the air. Thunderbird 2 waited for its moment to swoop in and help, but for the time simply kept itself close to the action.

The man on the roof hocked his harness to the base of the jet-mounted half of the connectors. He took a gun-looking device from his belt and began to work, a sharp red laser began cutting through the supports of the connections for the two ships. The man didn’t seem to have any regard for any of the mechanical interatry of the structure, only for his own safety in being so close to the smaller ship’s propulsion system. He was working quickly, keeping an ankle around a part of the support to allow some added oomph.

The figure stopped halfway through cutting and signalled over Thunderbird 2 with a wave. The larger ship picked up speed and seated itself just above the power of the shuttle’s exhaust. Thunderbird 2 opened underside bay doors of its own. Three magnetic grapples, not unlike the one extending from Thunderbird 1 only thicker, shout out and magnetically attached themselves to the 645 jet. Two were on the wings, and the last on the tail as far away from the heat of the blast as was still feasible. 

The man standing on top continued with his cutting. The couplings were tough and built well, but so was his equipment.

And then, all of a sudden, release.

The shuttle sped off, taking the last of the coupling’s supports with it, breaking off welding and screw points. Unfortunately for all those involved, the coupling was still better attached to the jet than the shuttle, throwing the passenger ship in a tail-forward flip. 

Thunderbird 2 pulled back against the forward roll of the jet, all her strength and a fourth grapple channelled into making sure that the jet didn’t flip over. The man held onto what was left of them, it was clear he had been expecting that to happen, but not nearly as quickly, or aggressively,as it did. The people inside of the 645 could feel this all happen, but not see. Some had screamed as they were all thrown forward again, many people falling to the floor or smack into other people. The pilots at the front of the jet saw the shuttle fly off into the distance, those in the shuttle kept their radios open, ready and waiting for their next order.

The man on the roof kept his shin around the base of the coupling, using both it and his arms to keep himself safely in-place. He waited there for Thunderbird 1 to return and pick him up. 

The man saw, just briefly, that there was some kind of oil over his pant leg from where he had rested it on the coupling. That couldn’t be helped. He changed his safety clip from being attached to the coupling and to the grapple, and then Thunderbird 1 let go of the jet. The man was thrown back like a swing once standing safely with his foot on the magnet, and kept his full faith in the equipment in use.

Thunderbird 1 collected her passenger once there was slack on the line to catch him, spun to get level again, and then shot off to chase the runaway space shuttle as Thunderbird 2 was entrusted with the jet. It had taken so long for the shuttle to detach that it was now a race against the clock to get them back to earth.

* * *

Inside of Thunderbird 1, the man leant against a wall and took his helmet off with a pant. His heart was racing fast enough that he felt like it was going to leap out of him.

The ship’s current pilot looked back to make sure he was all there. “How’re ya feeling?” he asked. The pilot’s seat sat in the middle, the rest of the cockpit sitting around him and overlooking a large window that extended down to his feet. It was built rather spherically, and was on tracks in such a way that it was always level, no matter how many spins and flips the ship itself did.

The first man gave a raspy nod. “All together,” he replied once he was able to speak.

The first man was an adult, but not nearly as old as the pilot. Jet black hair and strict blue eyes, the man was clean shaven to the point that you could see his dimples on either side of his cheeks even without him needing to smile. Underneath an organization logo on his chest said an embroidered name tag with ‘Scott’ written in the same font that ‘Thunderbird 1’ was written on the side of their ship. Scott was athletically built and his jumpsuit-like uniform showed signs of extensive use. He looked to be around 30 or so, but was already starting to get greys around his ears.

The current pilot, on the other hand, was an older man whose signature colour was an accented dark steel. He looked a lot like the man in blue, but not as pale. It seemed to be as if he used to have the same black hair as his partner before grey overtook it, but that wasn’t stopping him. His name tag said a clear and simple ‘Jeff.’ He looked to be a serious and experienced sort and knew it.

Both men spoke in regional American accents, their uniforms differed in detail but both were adaptive flight suits with the same sort of visual padding that you might see in a racing suit. There was an emphasis on extra armour on their chests and shoulders there to prevent equipment from digging into them. They looked custom designed, but still rather practical.

“Good goin’,” Jeff replied with a proud smile as Thunderbird 1 caught up to the shuttle. 

He adjusted his grip on the ship’s controls, two lever-like handles on either side of the pilot’s seat, and then handed control back to Scott in a quick and well-practiced exchange as the two swapped seats. Scott took to the ship as if it was second nature and Jeff took position by the dash, leaning forward to get a visual on the shuttle.

The shuttle did not have the infrastructure to survive the crash landing it was headed towards.It was lightweight - designed to be shuffled around by other ships or fly along in outer space. It was still currently flying far too high for the crew to evacuate by parachute, and waiting for the ship to descend enough would leave them with what was essentially a very large - and not very efficient - missile heading back towards the Earth.

The biggest problem right now was that living people were trapped inside the tin can to the stars. If this had just been an unmanned test, Thunderbird 1 could have shot it down and been done and dusted. Jeff hoped that it wouldn’t have to come to that, and he knew that it wouldn’t.

It was no god-damn surprise that the whole operation was done with private funding. All that Jeff could think about was the nightmarish slew of paperwork that was going to follow this adventure. At least if he could rescue them, there would be slightly less to sign.


	3. Yet More Introduction to Our Heroes

Alan, out of nothing better than just impulse, groaned as he watched on, surrounded by morbidly fascinated schoolmates.

The focus of the broadcast then changed. Flying next to the passenger jet was now what looked like a second, much smaller rocketship. This was the ship that the broadcasters were trying so desperately to bring attention too, and every time a camera, in or out of the jet, tried to zoom it the camera refused to focus. The narration of the newscaster gave more information, even if her automatically generated subtitles were dragging too far behind what she was saying for anybody there in the canteen watching the muted television to keep up.

Another student elbowed Alan to get his attention. He might have seen her in class before, but it was hard to tell with the school colours smeared across her face in zink. 

“Look, it’s the Thunderbirds!”. She shook his shoulder, pointing to the blurry rocket that filled up the screen as if he hadn’t noticed it.

The camera that was supplying this live broadcast was placed by a window and showed the ship in question open up and attach itself to the wing of the jet.

Alan rolled his eyes. “You know they’re not actually called ‘The Thunderbirds’, right? It’s ‘International Rescue,’ ‘Thunderbirds’ is just the name of the main ships they use.”

“Who _cares_ what they’re called, this is so cool!”

“There are ships flying around right outside, ya know.” Alan pointed to the door“You can actually go and _see_ those.”

The girl looked at him, baffled. “Dude, don’t be a buzzkill.”

“Yeah, don’t be a buzzkill,” a student next to her echoed.

“You just said the same thing but twice.” Alan folded his arm and scoffed his fringe out of his eyes. _Yeah! How dare these guys care about a cool-as-shit rescue in the air and not about a comparatively pretty simple flyover they had seen dozens of practices of already._

“The quality is so bad, _fuck_ I wanna see,” the girl cursed, pushing another kid aside to get closer to the TV.

Alan stuck next to her, “You can’t get any footage of the Thunderbirds. They must be using a frequency blocker – if there is any media on that deathtrap of a slingshot design they’ll have to be careful not to be recorded.” 

“It’s so weird that they do that, isn’t it?” She commented, neck craned to see over the students she couldn’t shove past.

“Eye-ar makes it pretty clear that they don’t want any photos of their ships, they don’t want people stealing their designs or trackin’ them.” Alan said an abbreviated Internarial Rescue [IR] as if it wasn’t one, ‘Thunderbirds’ would have perhaps been a little more dignified than that.

Another student butted into the conversation, wedging himself between the two of them. “Didn’t they steal stuff from your dad, Tracy?”He punctuated his sentence with a loud sip of his neon blue Slurpee. “Like, there was a whole thing about prototype engine design getting leaked or something.”

Alan looked over to him. “Well, I know Tracy Aerospace definitely isn’t a financial backer of ‘em, I can tell you that.”

“Maybe you guys need to use those camera-blocker things.”

“…Yeah, maybe we do. I’ll make sure to pitch that the next time I’m at a board meeting.” 

The first student shushed them both. “Something’s happening – it’s a pilot.”

A man in a navy-blue, jumpsuited uniform with a light blue accent climbed out of the rocket, looked dead into the camera, and then continued his careful ascent up and on top of the 645 jet. The media inside tried their best to get footage of the man, but there wasn’t much they could gather from a dark tinted helmet and apparently-blank name tag.

Alan took his eyes off the television and to the excited student next to him. He paused for a moment and then spoke. “So, what exactly is going on here?” He asked.

“You were right the first time with that ‘slingshot’ comment. They were using that airplane to send the other ship into space and it didn’t work,” she replied.

“Ah. I can see why Eye-ar would want to follow them.” 

The student looked at him again. “Yaknow, for a guy who doesn’t like them, you sure seem to know about the Thunderbirds.”

“When did I say that I didn’t like them?” Alan asked, more in shock than anything else. “You’re just hyping them all up here.”

She gave him a skeptical look but didn’t say anything more. The rest of the audience kept themselves together as they watched on.

* * *

Thunderbird 2 was the powerhouse of the fleet, a huge, tank-green cargo jet tasked with transporting rescue equipment and doing heavy lifting that Thunderbird 1 could not. Her pilot was much the same; a fraction shorter and younger than the blue pilot of Thunderbird 1, but far stockier and could take any beating that you might throw his way. ‘Virgil’s,’ as what was written on his tag, his accented colour was a green much alike his ship. Soft brown eyes that emoted more than his mouth ever did and a notable cleft on his chin. He had the same dark hair as Scott had, if only worn a bit shorter. He was an artist first and an inventive mechanic second.

Thunderbird 2 had already been able to soften the brunt force of the shuttle taking off, but there was still the matter of straightening everything all out enough so it could land safely. 

Virgil, hands still on his ship’s controls, radioed back to the Kemra 645. “How are we handling, fellas?” he asked. The dashboard of 2 was a lot more complex than 1’s, buttons and display screens all over. The labels of some of the more-used commands had already rubbed off.

The 645 pilots sounded relieved to hear his voice. It was a little thing, but Thunderbird 2’s presence alone was enough to wipe the bulk of their stresses away. “Holding out,” one replied, “But I’m not sure for how long.”

Virgil checked something next to a screen on his dashboard. “I’m going to help you boys get down to La Cresta airport, it’s not too far away from here.”

“Understood, Thunderbird 2.”

The unknown voice from before returned as it joined into the radio call. “La Cresta is ready and waiting for an emergency landing. You’ve picked a good day for this, fellas, the conditions all the way there look perfect.”

“Affirmative, Thunderbird 5,” The jet’s co-pilot replied.

Virgil spoke next. “What’s the story with Thunderbird 1?”

“Thunderbird 1 in current pursuit of the shuttlecraft. La Cresta is willing and capable to take them as well if need be, but it’s not looking like they’re going to finish up close enough to make any use of it.”

“Still, nice of them to offer.”

“Indeedy. I’m going to check over to see if we can use the M14 to land, they’re pretty much following it.”

“Not much time to close it off.”

“Hey, you do your job, Virg, and I’ll do mine,” Thunderbird 5 commented. The operator turned his attention back to the jet, “Do you fellas want me to talk to your passengers, or have you got that under control?”

“We can handle that.”

“F.A.B.” He replied.

Thunderbird 5’s pilot pushed his chair away from his station and rolled to another section. The chair did not have wheels but instead ran on a track in a circle around a large, curved desk covered in dials and screens on a desk that overlooked the Earth itself. Thunderbird 5 was a permanent space station in a lower Earth orbit and made a round trip in just under 10 hours. The station was fairly large and more than comfortable for its occupant to live and work in, with artificial gravity in full effect. Although the operator was not down on the planet and among the rescue, he was the one privy to every piece of information about it.

Thunderbird 5’s operator looked a little more like Scott than Virgil, but only barely. He had the same dark hair as the other two did, but regularly bleached it either white or a light blond that would be called ‘long’ for men, ‘short’ for women, or about average for anybody else. He currently needed to redo it to fix his exposed roots, but he actually sort of liked the look. ‘John,’ as what was written on his uniform, didn’t fly around in a big rocket ship like the others, but instead took over system and project operations. Thunderbird 5 took in distress calls, and it was his job to dispatch the rest of the Thunderbirds to get whoever needed their help to safety. John’s general uniform was more suited to comfort than active, on-site practicality and its colour was a mix of either a lilac purple or a pink, depending on the lighting or who you asked.

Thunderbird 5 was hooked into, however legally or not, into around 40 years’ worth of still active surveillance and control satellites that litter space around it. People on Earth respected its name and purpose, and that gave John the exact sort of power needed to close off the M14 interstate from up there if the situation called for it.

While on shift, John lived full time on the station, and generally spent any free time that he was given either gardening in the parts of the ship’s small dark room (there was a small space in the ship’s design too close to the reactor core to be used for much else), practicing with a set of electronic drums that he had managed to get on the ship, or communicating with other stations that he crossed orbits with. Low Earth orbit had its own culture, and John loved being a part of it.

Thunderbird 5’s main operation station was an organized mess. It looked like a nuclear control room with a couple of extra monitors here and there. John was juggling channels from all over, keeping sure that all of the callers were up to speed on what was going on. Airplane control towers on Earth were (rightfully) in concern about it all, and the ship that the shuttle was meant to meet up in space’s comment on the matter was a fairly grounded ‘understandable, good luck with all that.’ John had spoken to the current pilot of that station a few times before; it was an old long-term operation and study station that was scheduled to be turned into a sort of space hotel if the right funding and permissions went through.

That was the entire point of this slingshot idea - to save on space tourists. At this point, it would almost be easier to just send them all to the moon.

* * *

The grandstand loudspeakers crackled awake with the sound of the school’s PA system; the senior flyover was about to begin. Some of those who had glued themselves to the television unstuck their attention back to the real world, but many didn’t. Alan was one of the few that did, digging around in his bag to make sure that he still had his umbrella on him.

A lot of preparation, on Alan’s part, had gone into this moment. He just hoped that it was all worth it. Alan pulled out his umbrella and waited with it open by a wall, keeping himself apart and away from everybody else.

The announcer, the clear and professional voice of Principal Oaklen, gave his spiel and then the show began. The crew consisted of only seniors and the best of the best of the school’s flight program. You could see the hoverjets flying before you could hear them. Half a dozen of the single-pilot ships took off from the airstrip and flew outwards, getting into position to do their choreographed flyover as they moved above the school. It was a good view from the pool’s grandstand, standard flight drills with standard narration. The pilots fell back, and fell into a line to release coloured vapour over the school.

Instead of a clean, steady stream of mostly nitrogen-based vapor, the hoverjets all let out a foam that once exposed to the cold pressures of the atmosphere, fell into clumps and fell dead to the ground like hail. People who were in the path of destruction panicked as it belted down, but panicked more once the ‘hail’ fell into the swimming pool. The reaction to the chlorine in the pool changed the hail from small icy pellets into foam that soaked up the water and spilled out like spray insulation or elephant’s toothpaste, only far more like the former and in a much more impressive end result that took over the whole grandstand. Those who were standing in the open wet with pool water who got hit also got covered with this foam as it got created right on their skin, drying them out as they tried to figure out what was happening. The foam was an ever-so-soft light pink colour, a pastel cotton candy hell being created in real-time right before their eyes. 

Those who had instead been watching the rescue on the television had turned their attention to the chaos of outside once people started to panic. Some people screamed, others assumed it was all part of the show and cheered along.

Those flying the hoverjets, and those at the school’s ground control, had absolutely no idea that this was going to happen, or even the faintest idea as to how or why it did. If it hadn’t caused such a panic it would have honestly been amazing to sit and watch.

Alan sat and watched. He watched it all go down, completely calm and content with the chaos all around. He pulled off a bit of the foam from on top of his umbrella and checked its soapy texture in his hands. He looked almost disappointed in it, but content with the end results. Alan shook off his umbrella and walked off to go and grab some lunch for himself from the half-empty canteen, only once looking up at the television to see the escapades of ‘the Thunderbirds.’

* * *

The shuttle’s pilots had kept its speed and trajectory as constant as they could make it, allowing gravity to keep it curving with the Earth. With an operation as sensitive as this, there was only so much somebody at the helm was allowed to adjust on the fly. Pun fully intended. Thunderbird 1 kept her pace, matching with the shuttle.

Jeff took to a radio on Thunderbird 1’s dashboard. “Thunderbird 5, any updates?”

“It appears that the automatized systems of the ship have been compromised in the same matter as the attachment gear was, so they can’t do much but sit tight and keep flying,” John replied. “Like those prank greeting cards that don't turn off when you close ‘em. You’ve got to destroy them. You know the one Gordon got me last year?”

“With the glitter?” Jeff asked.

“Mh-hm,” was John’s hallowed response. It sounded like whatever he was thinking about was a bad memory.

Scott leaned forward so he would be heard better. “Looks like I can’t exactly get out and help this time, if that’s the case.”

One of the Astronauts inside of the shuttle joined the conversation. “We can’t override the flight program once it’s been started. It must be a software issue because the hardware is ticking along fine. Either we let it take us into space and finish naturally or find a way to kill it all dead and hope you can catch us.”

“Goddam automated launches have never done anybody any good,” Jeff cursed under his breath, making sure to keep himself on mute as he said it.

“I actually think it might be best to just let the shuttle keep flying,” John reported on top of the sound of him tinkering away on a keyboard.

Jeff shook his head. “Not viable, they’ve lost far too much height as it is.”

“Not if they adjust it to increase booster power and just go in a straight line, they’ll have to leave the planet eventually that way.”

“ _Jonathan_ ,” Jeff scorned with a slant to his voice.

“Not to interrupt, sirs,” the pilot of the shuttle broke back in, “But our ship should be able to do that. We have the fuel and the booster power to make it fine – the only problem is getting stuck out in orbit once we’re up there.” 

John rolled his seat around to another screen covered in a live orbit report of all other stations and ships. “Leave in the next 148 seconds exactly and you’ll be able to dock with the MG-17 pirate radio station.”

“Pirates?” The shuttle pilot asked.

“Yarr,” John affirmed in a pirate voice.

Jeff weighed up the plan in his mind. Thunderbird 1 couldn’t follow them out of the stratosphere, but he kept a lot of faith in his crew and their judgments. If Thunderbird 5 and the shuttle itself had the confidence to pull it off, then he should get out of their way. If worse comes to worst they could always go back and pick up the crew in Thunderbird 3.

John listened for a moment to the tower radio. The general consensus on that was a mix between ‘absolutely not’ and ‘If you think you can do it, go ahead.’ MG-17 was in the middle of commercial at that time, but were more than excited to help once John was able to get ahold of them. 

Both the runaway shuttle and ground control were sent the new trajectory plan straight from Thunderbird 5, and MG-17 changed its programming to a live coverage of the event in progress. It was a longshot plan, but the shuttle took in the new instructions and adjusted itself perfectly.

Thunderbird 1 peeled away to give the shuttle space with a spin, and those inside of the shuttle buckled themselves back in for a second try at leaving the planet. The countdown began, and it set off.

Thunderbird 5 kept an eagle close watch on the shuttle. It was a change on the original details and plan of the operation, but not enough that mission control couldn’t handle it.

The shuttle left Thunderbird 1’s visual range, the curve of the planet overtaking it.


	4. Be Careful What You Wish For

Oaklen’s office was an impressive affair. It was inside of an older building and had a window to one side that overlooked the football field. His achievements showed their faces in the form of a neat assortment of framed diplomas, awards and photos of Oaklen with various other people. The office, and the one just outside that an assistant worked at, felt like it had been created with the sole intention of intimidating and impressing the parents of possible future students. One of the photos was one of a much younger Oaklen and Alan’s father together. It was all rather pretentious, really.

There was a serious vibe in the room, like a custody hearing when one of the parents doesn’t show up. Course, Alan didn’t give a shit - at least not outwardly. He was still in his dirty sports uniform and was trying to find the worse possible way to sit on his chair in defiance without putting his shoes on the seat. Look, he was a lot of things, but he wasn’t an animal.

A formal-looking clock on the wall ticked loudly.

Neither Alan nor Oaklen were going to be the first to say anything. If this a story being told in a visual medium, the camera would linger on shots of both and hard cutting between either repeatedly. Oaklen had more or less stormed into the mess that was the school’s pool covered knee-deep in the pink foam and shouted at Alan as loud as he could without immediately losing his job. Alan didn’t even bother to protest or hide his involvement in the whole ordeal, he just finished what he was eating and went along with the security escort.

Oaklen sighed. Somebody had to start this drag of a conversation, so it might as well be him. “What are you thinking about right now, Alan?” 

Alan glanced up at him. “Uh… I think it’s stupid that you’re not allowed to get a GFC-qualified pilot’s licence without an open car one; they’re completely different machines that control and operate differently. Like… how is it fair that I’m not allowed to fly anything without logging enough hours on the ground? It doesn’t make any sen-.” 

“About your ‘ _ prank _ ,’” Oaklen said over him. He didn’t seem to be happy in himself that he had actually used the word ‘prank’.

“Oh. Okay. You should have said so. Well, I don’t think I got the formula for the foam exactly right, it didn’t react to the different atmosphere like it should have. Should have been more like snow than hail. Other than that I'd call it a success.”

His principal rubbed his face. It looked like he was trying to suppress a scream. “ _ Alan _ -”

“What! Sir  _ c’mon _ ,” Alan replied, “What do you want from me here?”

“At least  _ some _ admission of guilt or remorse would be a good start.”

Well, that wasn’t going to happen. “I mean, duh.”

“Are you going to give it?”

“Nah,” Alan gave without much muster. “I mean, yeah I did it and knew what was going to happen, and I did come willingly.”

“Alan Tracy, your antics today could have gotten somebody killed.”

“But it didn’t.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Sir, it doesn’t even produce a gas, nothing would have inhaled anything. And even if they ate it that’s just natural selection at all,” Alan explained.

Oaken still didn’t look amused. “Why am I always having this conversation with you, Alan? Why is it always you that makes my job difficult?”

“Somebody has too.”

“Does somebody  _ have  _ to reprogram the school announcements to set off fire drills every time your class begins a test?”

Alan’s response was formal, a sort of calm that seemed more practised than preformed. “Perhaps.” You could tell he was thinking of that event rather fondly. 

“-Or break into the school’s record’s room Autobooks to make it so that one of my staff was  _ dead _ so all of his classes would get automatic passes?”

“Well, if I edited just mine it would have been suspicious.”

Or replace the propane tanks in the science rooms with helium? However in the world that was even conducted, I still don’t know.”

“Okay but that actually wasn’t me, that was a senior in B-calc.”

“You knew about it?”

“Of course – but it was a ridiculous idea. I didn’t  _ actually help _ him. He did ask me how to solder but that was it.”

Oaklen rubbed his face, pulling the wrinkles around his eyes away. “How did you even have the time to organize all of this?” he asked. “To make and execute it all?”

Alan kept on being as indifferent as ever. “I’m allowed to have a hobby,” he replied with a shrug. “Honestly, I’m just impressed that nobody thought I was making a bomb.”

Oaklen just looked at him. “Do you think you’re funny?”

“Occasionally,” was Alan’s response. “Seriously, though. There is nothing here to stop me from making a bomb, that’s a bit worrying. I used the school labs and everything nobody even asked what I was doing; they just let me work.”

“Why do you even know how to-“ Oaklen sat back in his chair, the leather squeaking as he did so. He bit his bottom lip and thought for a moment. The thought of calling the police floating in his mind for the second time that afternoon, but held off on the idea. “What do you want to do with your life, Alan?”

Alan avoided the question, he took his eyes away and began to pick at his chair’s armrest.

“ _ Alan _ ?”

“… NASCAR,” Alan mumbled under his breath, before brushing it away. “I dunno. Be a pilot or something, work in space maybe. Spaceships are cool.”

“Like your old man?”

“I guess.” Alan’s tone was quiet. It was no longer a ‘I don’t like you’ quiet, but now a more ‘I don’t want to talk about this’ sort of quiet.

The two had already had enough ‘you need excellent marks to be an astronaut’ conversations to prove monotonous. Alan’s father was  _ the guy _ who was all about the ‘you need excellent marks to be an astronaut’, it was exhausting sometimes.

“The rest of your brothers have all excelled-”

Alan knew he was going to hate this next conversation, he went back to his ‘I don’t like you’ vibe and let out a loud growl over the other man.

“-You clearly have the same potential as they do, more even. Your logged flights have been actually better than both Scott and Virgil’s-”

Alan began to pick a hangnail on his thumb. “I once watched Scott quietly struggle with a baby lock on a pill bottle for a solid half-hour,” he said in a flat voice. It turned out that the bottle didn’t even have a child lock on it, that was a fun moment. “And Virgil only paints impressionists, so he’s just as much as a lost cause.”

“Johnathan’s a published researcher-“

“I’m fairly certain that all that time up in space has made John go actually insane. I’ve seen him microwave his ice cream because he likes it as soup better.”

“And Gordon-”

“-He’s an Aquanaut in a family of astros. I think he does it just to be special.” Alan said back.

“-He’s an  _ Olympian _ .”

“And  _ he got to leave _ school to go and do it,” Alan, somehow, slouched deeper into his chair. It was a wonder how he hadn’t fallen off yet or broken his back in half. “Look, sir, as much as I apricated being reminded about how absolutely incredible and amazing my older brothers are and that I’m not, I don’t see what this has to do with anything. You just sound like those characters in a movie who are only there to talk about the plot or whatever.”

“’Exposition dumb?’”

“Yeah.”

Oaklen sighed. If Alan had planned all of this during his English classes it would have explained a lot. 

Alan didn’t really mean any of what he had said about his brothers, but he wasn’t really in the mood for a Tracy Brother Praise Day with him excluded. Alan ripped the hangnail off with his teeth; there wasn’t even any blood. Not only did his older brothers already have bibliography-worthy lives and careers as it was, but as the baby of the family he was given little to no choice to somehow live up to an excel further than all of them combined. It was rather exhausting sometimes.

The worst part of it all, Alan thought, was that they were all the men behind International Rescue. Not only did people talk about how great they were out in the open, but they also did it about ‘The Thunderbirds’ and all that was associated. That only dug the knife in deeper sometimes.

-

International Rescue was an operation with the rest of his family being tasked with being the pilots of the ships and working together to swoop in and save the day in ways that only IR can do. ‘Course there was more than a fair share out there of conspiracy theories and whatnot about them, but the general consensus within a few years of the organization running was that they did good.

Alan’s family, however private or not, were the faces of the organization. Somebody going on a spiel about how great his older brothers are or how great IR was all blended together in similar-sounding muck that, or a stuck-road teenager like Alan, just had a passive-aggressive overshine about much he sucked in comparison.

Alan knew that they did good, he knew it in his heart. He just held onto resentment like a bubble stuck inside of cold glass. While the rest of the Tracy family got to fly around in awesome machines and save people’s lives every day, Alan was stuck shipped off to some boarding school and stuck doing English homework. It didn’t seem fair.

Everything that Alan really wanted to do was back there on base, but there was nothing Alan had been able to do to convince his father to let him do home-schooling instead. All the other total  _ incredible _ and  _ amazing _ Tracy brothers had already finished high school, and they all gone off to get frankly way more degrees than they needed, and so Alan just had to do the same.

That’s how it all worked, apparently.

Alan knew he was very young compared to the other, he wasn’t that blind. But why couldn’t he help with ship maintained or machine innovation? Why couldn’t he help John up in Thunderbird 5 with mission control as extra staff? God knew he needed some. Why couldn’t he hang around base and learn the ropes that everybody else was allowed to climb as he studied on the side? Why did he have to go to school on sporting days and write an essay about Jane Eyre’s own school life?

At least she got a good teaching career out of it. Or something. Alan didn’t know - he didn’t actually read the book.

He looked up at his principal, Oaklen was waiting for Alan to direct the conversation. He had been handed over that power, but he knew it was a trap. “Can I go back to my dorm, now?” Alan asked, kicking the carpet under his shoe around a little. 

Oaklem was a soft man, perhaps too soft for his own doing. He used to be the strict sort who would yell and punish any misnomer like an army sergeant, but nowadays tried to instead channel that energy into something better; the student who figured out how to edit what the fire alarm sounds like would do great in the school’s media department, or the son of an astronaut coming from an aviation family being allowed to work on and around the school’s hoverjets, it just made sense at the time. He and Alan spent a lot of time together because of this.

“No,” Oaklem replied. It was a stern, no-frills attached a simple ‘no.’ the worse kind of ‘no’ to get. “Alan, I’ve called in your father in.”

“Dad’s on the other side of the world,” Alan replied. “We’ll be waiting in here for a while-“

The door right behind them both clicked open.

Jeff Tracy was a hard man to read. He would flick between being a serious, no-nonsense diplomat of a man to a rich man with too much money and backed crazy aviation projects as if he was trying to hide something. A fairly eccentric man of money and experience who wouldn’t see any issue with actually letting visiting children press the buttons on the inside of a stealth bomber because he could see that they had genuine interest in the machines. That exact situation was actually one of Scott’s, his eldest’s sons, first memories. In Jeff’s defence, he did actually  _ own  _ that bomber.

Jeff also moved around with the title of being the first man on the surface of Mars. Alan didn’t even realise how amazing of a fact that actually was until he saw a photo of his own father during a 2 nd grade class on the Solar System. He had just assumed it was a normal job for a dad to have. This also meant that Alan and all of his elder brothers go to live under Jeff’s very public image and status, as one would have expected them to. Jeff was a widowed father of five boys who had spent most of their developmental years up in space, a fact he always sort of resented about himself.

The Jeff Tracy standing in the doorway was not the fun Jeff Tracy. He was a day behind shaving and looked like he had just been caught out in a storm, despite being complexly dry. He was in a coat that didn’t quite match the warm day and a gruff to him that told you that he was perfectly aware of it. He looked tired.

-

“Ah, Jeffery,” Oaklen said as he stood up, “Nice to see you.”

“I was in the area,” Jeff replied, flicking a bit of soot off his jacket with a glare down to Alan.

Alan stood up and scooted around his father to a waiting chair outside in the hallway. Whatever bad vibe Jeff was putting down, he could pick it up well enough.  _ Ah. His father was going to kill him. _ Alan finally realised Maybe not here, but he knew that it was going to happen sooner or later.

The door clicked once again. Alan was left alone in the hallway. Faded-blue pictures of former students and musicals of years past decorated the place in old wooden frames, he began to wonder if they had been developed in the school’s photo lab or somewhere else.

Did the school even have a photo lab?

Alan slunk down into his chair, his colourful runners dragging on the floor. 


	5. Here's the Attention You Wanted

Thunderbird 2 and the 645 made a careful and controlled descent down on the main runway of La Cresta Airport. The entire airport was on high alert for their arrival. The cables that were holding onto the jet fell into slack the two ships came to a stop.

Thunderbird 2 let go, retracted its grapples and hovered with powerful thrusters above the now stationary jet as emergency crews attended. The damage to the top of the ship was aggressive, not anything that you couldn’t buff out with enough work; it would fly again. Thunderbird 2 waited from above for an all clear, and then set off to recoup with the rest of the fleet once it was given it. Virgil called back to control as he ascended to the sky. “Thunderbird 2 to Thunderbird 5, all clear on my end.”

“Reading you all clear, Thunderbird 2,” John replied. You could hear him mentally tick off Virgil’s part of the whole rescue as he said it.

“What’s the status of the other ship?” Virgil asked out of curiosity.

“They’re just letting the shuttle just go into space,” John replied.

“I thought this was an emergency landing operation?”

“The shuttle was all fine, apparently. They’ll be right and heading home now, you should do the same.”

“F.A.B.”

* * *

It took the shuttle just under 10 minutes to find itself in space, and the energy and relief on Earth control, once it was safely docked to the pirate radio station, was infectious.

Jeff and Scott exchanged a casual low five as jeff took to rest on a passenger seat. Scott kept at the pilot’s stand and bowed off his course to return back to base. Jeff sat down, still on the high of the rescue and a job well done. This was always the best part of any mission; being able to go home with just as many people alive as from when you first arrived.

A screen near his head blinked, and then John’s voice came from it. “You have a call, father.” He reported. “Front office.”

Jeff sat up. “… A call.” He asked, his tone of voice more aligned if it was a statement than a question.

“Mh-hm.”

The call channel was quickly flipped over.

“Ms Kyrano, did you tell them that I’m busy?”

It was a young woman’s voice, she sounded just older than a teenager. “Yes sir, absolutely.”

“ _Am I_ busy?”

“He seemed very mad, and that it was important. I said that I would get it to you as soon as it was viable.”

“Who?”

“Call was under the name of Phillip Oaklen, Kendron Privet.”

Jeff Tracy paused for approximately half a second before replying. “What the hell has he done _now_?”

* * *

Principal Oaklen and Jeff Tracy shook hands in the entryway to the office. There was an even mix of a decades-long friendship, professional respect, and dread on what the following conversation was going to entail within it.

“Thank you for coming on such short notice,” Oaklen said as he sat back down at his desk.

“It was no trouble.” Jeff sat down in the chair opposed. Alan had left his duffle bag by the seat, Jeff briefly looked in and zipped it back up. That bag had been with him all the way though the selecting progress that saw him become an astronaut, and now was being used to pull destructive school pranks. It was a better life than being left in storage, perhaps.

Oaklen coughed to himself. “I presume my message got to you alright?”

Jeff nodded with a formal “mh-hm.”

* * *

The hallway in what Alan found himself waiting in was quite of nigh for the soft buzz of the air conditioner. He kept himself still enough to try and catch the conversation going on behind him, but it wasn’t nearly loud enough for that.

The door to Oaklen’s office rattled open. “You did _what_?” came a rasp from Jeff in the doorway that was trying so hard not to cause a scene that it went back on itself and became a shout instead.

Alan kept himself safely as deep in his chair that physics would allow.

A lone hand following Jeff out of the door and pulled him back into the office by his shoulder. Since Jeff’s grip on the door was so tight he closed the door on himself as he was brought back into the room.

* * *

“Scotch?”

“Please,” Jeff replied, patting his face down to regain is composure. He was usually a very structured man, not prone to any sort of outburst. He was Jeff Tracy, highly accomplished astronaut and entrepreneur. He could handle a single parent-teacher interview.

Oaklen sorted just that. “If anything, this is more of an embarrassment on our part, and do trust me when I tell you that.”

Jeff picked up and took half the drink.

Oaklen tried to soften his side of the burden of this whole exchange, putting his weight on his palms flat on the desk. “It’s not as if Alan isn’t stimulated or given enough attention at the school, I make sure of it myself.”

“No, I believe you,” Jeff replied quickly, “and it was never this troublesome with the rest of my boys.” That was only partly a lie.

“How are they, at the moment?”

“Good, good. Gordon’s recovering well ahead of track and John’s recently received an advance for a textbook that he’s been putting together.”

Both men went quiet.

“Perhaps this is part of the problem,” Oaklen said quietly.

Jeff let out a soft ‘hm’ in agreeance, the ball of his palm over his mouth. He had deflated a little bit as he said it.

“Alan’s a bright boy – an exceptionally bright boy. The problem is, I think, is that he just doesn’t care,” Oaklen admitted. “And I can’t do anything on my end if a student doesn’t care.”

Jeff sighed. He couldn’t rebut that.

“I’ve already given Alan so many legs up and extra privileges, you know that.”

“Yes - and I’ve always been thankful for that, you know that I am.”

“It’s just that, it’s _Alan_ ,” Oaklen said. He looked almost bad for wording it like that, like he was insulting the boy, despite intending the exact opposite. 

Jeff knew exactly what he meant.

“And if these are the actions of a child with no apparent deeper desire than to be noticed, I don’t want to see what he would do with actual mal-intention behind him.”

Jeff paused. “…Are you saying that Alan is dangerous?”

“I’m saying that he’s smart and knows, and excuse the language, that he’s top shit.” Oaklen explained with a bite of his lip. “Nothing much I can do about that.”

* * *

“We’re going,” Jeff Tracy ordered as he left the principal’s office, closing the office door behind him and handing Alan’s duffle bag to him with his other hand.

Alan stood up to attention, almost knocking over his chair in the process. “…. Is everything oka-“

“You should be happy that the school is not going to press _charges_!” Jeff snarled, his tone immediately changing once the conversation was just the two of them. “Because he’s sure as all _hell_ in the right to do just that. And - also I’m not paying for damages.”

Alan shut himself up and tried to think of a good response. A million things were swarming around in his brain like a kicked wasp hive.

“What even in the goddam hell were you _thinking_?”

Alan ‘ _ughed_ ’ like the teenager that he was, trying to keep himself on top of the conversation. “Does it even matter anymore!?”

“A little! Yeah!” His father scorned back. “Maybe just a _little_ bit!” It wasn’t what he was saying, but the tone of voice that scared you, like if you ran over something while learning to drive and he was going on a ‘what if that was a person?’ tirade. “You’ve been _expelled_ , Alan,” Jeff said. “Expelled. That’s it, we’re done here.”

Alan began to stutter. “But I-“

“What the _fuck_ did you _think_ was going to happen? Huh? Here is all of the attention that you so desperately wanted! What now?”

Jeff Tracy didn’t usually swear, and he hated when other people did it. He even sometimes got mad at a simple ‘shit’ without reason. That still didn’t stop him.

Right now, Alan did not know if he wanted to yell back or just start crying, so he did neither.

“Go say your goodbyes and grab your things together, I’ll help you carry it to the plane,” his father ordered, fixing up the collar of his coat.

Alan watched his father walk down the hall. He was a figure with authority and carried himself fully knowing it.

* * *

The family’s main hoverjet was a small privet ship, good for moving perhaps a dozen people if everybody planned to be nice to each other on the journey, although had been fitted much better for moving cargo instead. It wasn’t the only privet jet that the Tracy family-owned, far from it, but it was one that they used quite a lot. It had a white body with a patterned blue and green design on the side that earned it the name ‘Hummingbird,’ said name written on its tail next to its ID tag.

Hummingbird had been waiting at the school’s runway. Her pilot was a taller man who looked a lot like Jeff Tracy, but with far less of the greys through his hair. He was in a simple light blue dress shirt, jacket, and a stiff cap, looking quite a lot like a commercial pilot. He watched Jeff and Alan board from his pilot’s chair and closed up the book he had been skimming over as he waited.

“Good afternoon,” He said with a soft smile, deep dimples on either side of his face showing.

“Fuck off,” Alan said in the same friendly tone.

“Yessir,” Scott replied, turning on the ship and starting his pre-flight checks.

Jeff shot a harsh glare Alan’s way, his wrath only subdued by the fact that Scott didn’t seem to have been bothered by the interaction at all. He was still smiling in a ‘yeah, whatever you say’ sort of way as he flicked dials on the ceiling back and forth.

Scott Tracy was the oldest of Jeff Tracy’s sons, making him Alan’s oldest brother. With Alan still a few months shy of 15 and Scott recently turning 30, Scott was less of a ‘cool older brother’ type and more like a young uncle to him. Scott publicly was an excellent and far experienced jet pilot, and if he was free often flew guests two and from Tracy Island when he wasn’t occupied, like he was doing now.

Scott was directly in the shadow of Jeff, that much was true, but he thrived very well in it much alike a rainforest fern. He was the one who followed his father through meetings and production work, and always had it in his (and honesty, all the other brother’s) minds that he would be the one who would take it all over when Jeff was to retire. That’s where Scott wanted to be in 10-odd years, and he was more than willing to put in all of the work needed to get there.

Alan took a seat at the very back of the hoverjet, putting his duffle bag the seat next to him. He had shoved his personal items willy-nilly in it, with all of his clothing and books in another bag that was in the ship’s cargo port. He only packed the stuff he cared about, anything he left in his dorm his roommates could keep to themselves.

He shifted down so he was slouching down onto the seat, half of his back on the bottom of the seat and looked out of the circular window. He fished out old looking headphones from his bag and a wallet-like case, took out a bright, semi-transparent yellow Audiocard, and popped it into the radio built into the wall next to him. Alan didn’t even check what had been recorded onto the disk, he just needed something to occupy his brain with.

Jeff took a seat by the front of the jet. The trip home was going to run them a few hours, and he wasn’t really in the mood to chat for any of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah I stole a disaster from a Superman movie. I also stole the whole concept of Thunderbirds so eh, it's all fanfiction. It's a cool as shit scene.


End file.
